Hugelculture and Square Foot Gardening

 

As you can see, this was a weedy steep and unused eyesore in front of the house.  My daughter, Amy, has been telling me about Hugelculture mounds.  I decided this natural swale in the land might work,  Instead of digging a 3' trench, I could smooth from the steep side to the lake side that was coincidentally about 3' lower.

Ron helped a lot using the tractor on the scary slope and doing most of the heavy lifting as we covered the first layer with decaying Alder logs.  Second layer was sticks and branches.

Then came a layer of maple leaves - and then load after load of dirt from one end of the big garden.

After a week of hard manual labor, the mound is complete and planted.  Now we wait!

Pantry Filling Time

It doesn't seem like I have done that much storing this year, but when I look at my pantry, I discover that I have been busier than I thought.

Starting the season with raspberries - jam and frozen berries resulted from many days of picking.  Now the old canes are cut out and the new ones ready for next year's crop.

On a visit to our kids' in eastern Washington, we came across fruit stands that are hard for me to pass up.  So on to stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa, and nectarine jam.

Now my little garden is starting to produce, and I haven't even started on blackberries yet, so clearly I still have a lot to do.

Tina's Garden

It is really unfair to call it "Tina's Garden" since she has had so much help from Tony and Sara and Jesse in making it.  However, the vision is Tina's and I am thinking about kidnapping her and having her design my garden for me.

You can see the greenhouse and fence that Tony (with Jesse's help) built last fall to protect the garden from the deer, moose, and assorted other animals that live in the woods surrounding the garden.  It is still a work in progress - you can see a new raised bed that they built along the fence line for trellising crops like beans and peas next year.

The chicken yard sits in one corner, with a small orchard on this side of the fenced in area.

Raised beds and mulch allow for maximum weed control and minimum watering requirements.

Garden Update July 2012

Suddenly, the raised bed where I mixed the "quick compost" in May is looking a lot better.  The beans have reached the top of their trellis and are climbing back down and putting out blossoms.

I intended to get a picture of the grape clusters and scared the bird off this nest in the vines which about scared both of us to death.

The apples are looking really good even though I didn't do that great a job of thinning blossoms.  I thought I had severely thinned them, but as you can see, there are still plenty to mature.

Even with this small section of edible pea pods, we have plenty for our use now.  Squash were slow, but they are forming squash now.

I'm picking raspberries every other day and making jam and freezing berries for winter.

Oh, and the lovely flowers that are blooming:  My favorite clematis is in full bloom.

Lilies in several colors

And dahlias are finally starting to bloom also.

Definitely my favorite time of year!

Square Foot Garden Update - First day of summer

It definitely hasn't been the year to begin a garden adventure in the Pacific Northwest so far.  However, with the beginning of summer, we are actually looking at days that get to a normal high and a few days of sunshine in a row. 

Everything is late this year.  As we near the end of June, I still have irises that haven't bloomed.  The ones that are blooming are beautiful though.  My square foot garden that was built in the mini-snow storm of late April, has been struggling along.  I have replanted the beans and squash twice already.  The peas came up well, but then a slug got in and wiped out several, so I replanted them about two weeks ago.  To say gardening is a challenge in the Pacific NW is a masterpiece of understatement.

The peas I originally planted are about 18" tall.

The cabbage look great - but this may be a "Cabbage Year" where all that does well is cabbage.

Fortunately, the spinach is doing well - it is my favorite garden vegetable.

Broccoli, like cabbage, does well in a cool wet year.

Carrots and beans are struggling.

Beets and squash are barely up.

I gave everything a new dose of diatamaceous earth (which has kept out the bugs, but hasn't been totally effective on slugs) and steer manure compost, and am hoping the sunny days of summer will kick everything into high gear.